Janine Antoni, “Inhabit,” 2009. Courtesy of Luhring Augustine Gallery

 I agree with the Art21 blog post, Another kick in the pants, that everyone needs the occasional kick in the pants, only I think that maybe we need it regularly. Joe Fusaro says

I use Art21 for a kick in the pants from time to time, whether it’s to inspire my teaching by watching Carrie Mae Weems or to give my studio practice a jolt by listening to Kiki Smith talk about her process for making works of art. I mean, everyone needs an occasional kick in the pants, don’t you think?

Joe goes on to mention TED talks as another source of inspiration, and I have to agree with him -  TED.com and Art21 have been regular sources of inspiration for me too.

TED’s theme is Ideas worth spreading, and its mission is of epic dimensions:

…our scope has become ever broader…. We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we’re building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other. This site, launched April 2007, is an ever-evolving work in progress.

A clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers is an amazing boast, and the reason why so many people either discover TED with joy or continue to return to its rich storehouse.

The scope of Art21 is enormous, and its themes a dream for teachers of art. The series explore such themes as compassion, consumption, ecology, fantasy, humor, identity, loss & desire, memory,paradox, place, play, power, protest, romance, spirituality, stories, structures, systems, time, and transformation. Each theme is tantalising in its scope, eg. compassion – artists explore conscience; reconcile past & present; expose injustice; express tolerance. It makes me wish that Art were compulsory, or at least, not separate from the official literacy which seems only to reside in English. A sharpening of higher order thinking skills will find no better place than the Arts (although it certainly resides in all subjects).

Every day I still find myself explaining, justifying and defending my online activity. I always point out that it’s the connections to people and ideas, information and images, which I would otherwise not discover, that keep me coming back to my laptop. It’s a breathlessly vast source of inspiration and ideas, a regular kick in the pants – pushing my thinking, challenging me, jolting me and enriching my life.

I would recommend Art21 to anyone, not just art lovers, because it provides a window into a world of ideas and creative concepts, and of course, TED.com because of its amazing array of interesting people who have a way of making complex things simply fascinating.

Art:21, Season 5 is finally here.

Can’t wait for next week’s episode, Cindy Sherman features.

If you caught the excellent Independent Lens season opener HERB AND DOROTHY, you discovered a couple whose life was consumed with the beauty and joy of experiencing and collecting contemporary art. Herb and Dorothy Vogel are a husband and wife of modest means who need art in their lives the way most of us need food and water. What was particularly lovely about the film was its focus on profiling the couple, and not necessarily the artists and art itself.

A completely satisfying work, it made me want to go out and collect some art. It had me thinking about what passions my wife and I share. It also reminded me that I really ought to hang up that piece of folk art I bought in the summer.

If the film left me wanting to know more about anything, it was the myriad of artists mentioned that I wasn’t familiar with. Who are they, and what’s their process?

Carrie Mae Weems’ Mourning , 2008. Archival pigment print, 61 x 51 inches.

Together with the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and its “Films at the Frist” series, we’re happy to bring you free screenings of this series over two consecutive Fridays, October 23 and 30, at 6:30 p.m. Two episodes will be shown each night, each constructed around a theme that functions as a thread that loosely connects the artists: “Compassion,” “Fantasy,” “Transformation” and “Systems.”

Season Five includes 14 of today’s most accomplished artists as they create works that reflect important and timely global issues. The artists span five continents and include such legendary figures as Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, John Baldessari, Carrie Mae Weems and William Kentridge.

There’s an excellent companion site, with a complete list of all the artists profiled, at pbs.org/art21

Now, 99.9 percent of the people who read this blog can’t afford to collect art by any of the artists mentioned above, but perhaps the Art: 21 films will inspire you, and like Herb and Dorothy Vogel, you’ll catch the next generation of great artists while they’re on their way up. When’s the next art crawl?

And speaking of Herb and Dorothy, and the Frist Center, if you missed the film when it aired on NPT, you’re in luck. The film is screening as a prelude of sorts to the Nashville Jewish Film Festival on Sunday, November 1, 3:00 p.m. at the Frist.

HAPPY NATIONAL ARTS & HUMANITIES MONTH! Season Five of the Peabody Award-winning television series “Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century” premieres on PBS in the United States (Fall 2009).
Week of October 19

• Martin Papcún: papcun.net +Check out his West 45th sight specific installation, 2008 (completed at SPACES as a SWAP artist). He has another one coming up through Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative …
• Center for Urban Pedagogy: makingpolicypublic.net
• Hildur Asgeirsdóttir Jónsson: hildurjonsson.com
• The Drop: Exhibition 2012+: thedropnyc.org +includes past SWAP artists Manuel Acevedo & Julian Montague
• Susken Rosenthal: susken-rosenthal.de

For your heart-healthy #DailyArtDose, follow us on Twitter and become our fan on Facebook.

There’s a great post on Modern Art Notes about the new season of Art:21.
The school situation Tyler Green describes is very similar to mine:

“So over the course of several days I heard schoolteachers and the art:21 staff talk about how art:21 was used in America’s schools to inject art and artists into conversations that students are already having about insert subject here. This did not exist when I was in school. In the whole of my elementary and secondary school career the closest I came to discussing art in the classroom was about 75 minutes on Renaissance painting when I was a sophomore in high school. (Thanks Mr. Holubar!) Given the increasing American focus on preparing students for standardized tests instead of preparing them for the world, my experience was, sadly, on the vanguard of American education.”

I grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma – I took a fun pottery class once, my mom made stained glass, and I had a terrific drama teacher. Mostly, though, visual art was painting, and painting was mostly landscapes and portraits. On our bi-annual field trip to Philbrook Art Museum, I saw and discussed some dewy-eyed Bouguereaus.
Contemporary art? No way!

But teachers and students have resources, FREE ones, and great ways to integrate contemporary art into curriculum.  I second MAN’s prompt — check out Art:21’s educational materials for Season 5. Send them to other parents, teachers, and principals!

While you’re at it, spread the good word for the Henry’s
Fall Educator Workshop.
Tell a teacher!

Tim Hawkinson is known for creating complex sculptural systems through surprisingly simple means. Inspiration for many of Hawkinson’s pieces has been the re-imagining of his own body and what it means to make a self-portrait of this new or fictionalized body. Sculptures are often re-purposed out of materials which then artist then mechanizes through hand-crafted electrical circuitry.

Tim Hawkinson is featured in the Season 2 episode “Time” of the Art21 series “Art:21 — Art in the Twenty-First Century”.

For more information: http://www.pbs.org/art21

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been watching Art21 on Hulu.com.  Every night before I go to bed, I’ll watch one of the hour-long documentary episodes that features three or four visual artists who are current stars of the art world.  It’s really neat to see and hear these artists speak about their work in an articulate way.  Sure, they might be confused or unaware of their own genius, but they always manage to describe their thoughts in an accessible way.

I’m excited to start my graduate program at the end of the month so that I can engage in artsy conversation.  It’s pretty embarrassing for me to discuss issues of identity with a friend who has no interest in talking about something so frivolous.

Art’s hard at the initial stages of concept.  I feel like a crazy person when I introduce a new idea to someone.  It comes easily to me to be so crazy, but it takes a lot of effort to a) convince another person of my idea and b) resist the inevitable misunderstanding from the other person.  Take the simple idea that I clone myself.  Can you imagine me at a party, introducing myself: “I’m an artist.”  “Oh yeah?  What kind of art?”  “Oh, well a lot, I do a lot of cloning.”  “Cloning?”  “Yeah, I clone myself in my artwork.”  “What do you mean?”  You get the idea.

When I watch Art21, my thoughts aren’t racing.  I really like watching the show because it’s the subject matter that I geek out on.  I’m like a candy junkie eating sugar.  So if you want to get a taste of the contemporary art world, as well as what I think is da bomb shizzle, definitely go to Hulu.com and type in “art21” into the search field.

ArtBabble is a video site dedicated to people who want to “babble on” about art. This online forum is full of videos on contemporary art and is a great resource for teaching. Checkout the documentation of Doug Aitken’s Sleepwalkers, 2007  at The Museum of Modern Art, watch the art-installation process in the new Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, and preview artists such as Carrie Mae Weems on Season 5 of PBS series Art:21.

I finished the last seasons of Art:21 and my end conclusion is disappointment.  The show was educational and enlightening in the way that it showed me that what is now praised and progressive ,  is typically not what I enjoy to look at or here about.  Working through problems and making new discoveries is trampled underfoot by the need to fill commissions biennials and the creation of a finished products.

In conclusion I wanted to see some one work to make something with there hands.  But more often than not I saw a lot of uninspired dis-attached novice filmmakers and wanna be philosophers.

Graham

Over the past ten years, Art21 has established itself as the preeminent chronicler of contemporary art and artists through its Peabody Award-winning biennial television series Art:21—Art in the Twenty-First Century. It is one of my favorite PBS series and I am so excited that they are back with their fifth season!

It will premiere on Wednesday, October 7 at 10:00 p.m. (ET) on PBS, with three additional one-hour episodes airing over the next three consecutive Wednesdays: October 14, 21 and 28 (check local listings). Through in-depth profiles and dynamic behind-the-scenes footage featuring artists speaking directly about their inspirations and ideas, Season Five shows a broad range of artistic practice, technical innovation, and experimentation, from artists tackling large-scale collaborative projects in hangar-like studios, to those working in the quiet of more intimate studio settings.

Get Involved:

Art21 invites you to host a preview screening of Season 5, before it premieres on PBS, at your local museum, high school, library, university, art space, or community organization as part of Art21 Access ‘09. Sign up here!

Season 5 related announcements and content will be featured on the Art:21 Blog in the months leading up to the premiere of the series.

Stay informed and join the conversation on Facebook & Twitter.

Watch the Season 5 trailer and catch up on past seasons of Art:21, available for streaming on Hulu or for download on iTunes (link opens in iTunes).

1 )  http://www.artbabble.org/

Art babble es un sitio dedicado exclusivamente a los videos de arte contemporáneo. Llegue a ellos buscando videos de “art:21“, una serie documental muy interesante, que muestra a cada artista por separado, en un tono que te sumerge en la sensibilidad y la subjetividad de cada obra.  La serie la dan en el film&arts en Chile, pero lamentablemente es muy dificil pillarla al aire.

Además de tener la exclusiva de los videos de art:21  hay un montón de videos mas que vale la pena revisar.

2)   http://www.atrevetehoy.com/

Atrévete hoy es una iniciativa impulsada por Victor San Juan (aeurus), que reúne experiencias e historias de personas que se han atrevido a emprender y vivir  su propio camino. La idea finalmente es formar una comunidad que logre inspirar a las personas a dar el salto y perseguir sus  sueños.

3)   http://www.estudiantesdearquitectura.cl/

Un nombre  genérico para abordar lo genérico.  Estudiantes de arquitectura son un grupo de chicos de la fau (arq uchile) que  decidieron extraer sus conversaciones de pasillo hacia la web.  La pagina se dedica a mostrar lo que ve un estudiante como yo y sirve para estar al tanto de todo lo inn sin mucha profundidad, lo que es bueno en las horas de ocio.

El articulo que hay que ver es el la entrevista a Federico Negro de “CASE design” (NY).  Case es la oficina responsable de “design reform” el sitio dedicado a instruir sobre los programas que están literalmente cambiando la manera de trabajar la arquitectura  través del diseño paramétrico/generativo.

I came across this today and thought you might enjoy it as much as I did. In this short video excerpt from the PBS Art21 Series on YouTube, Arturo Herrera discusses his approach to creating collages and paintings by bringing together disparate elements into one unified work.

 
This second video gives more insight into the artist’s inspiration, which he says comes in part from thinking about and listening to music. In it you can also see a large installation of his collaged paintings. You can see from his description of his process that these pieces are amazingly intricate and thoughtful, though they look loose and effortless.

Today we spent the entire morning getting the house ready to show, and the prospective buyers haven’t come, or called. At least we are living in pristine surroundings again. But that precludes painting.

I have started viewing this whole experience as any other day job. I now have a new job, which is marketing my house. It’s almost a full-time job, but so is my art. It just takes a little more juggling, that’s all. But I would so appreciate it if people would let me know their intentions, so that I would know how to go about my day.

I just got the email about the season 5 premier events and all I can say is YAY! This will be the third time I have hosted a premier event and I am pretty pumped. This PBS program is amazing and offers up in depth explorations of contemporary working artists. If you haven’t seen it you need to take a peek-it will be well worth it.

Visit http://www.pbs.org/art21to learn more about the program and to get involved. They have a great blog too at http://blog.art21.org . Check it out-you won’t be disappointed!

While trying to watch the hopefully NOT last episode of my favorite super sweet nerd-a-fied 007 best secret agent  and yet doomed to be sent back to obscurity  a la Freaks and Geeks show, Chuck, I stumbled upon the Art21 series. Yes, that’s right what I paid about 22 bucks for a few years back for the first season from the PBS on-line store is now available for free for all poor and inspirational craving artists to watch streaming to their Apple 21 in power-books. All the seasons are there, broken up into the artistic themes just like the DVDs.  What a great resource. Now if only I could get some one to update the latest Flash player on my computer at my day job, then I’d really be in business. But for some reason I can’t seem to come up with a legitimate reason to need FLASH v99.9999 or whatever it is. Hmmm,wait, video Illustrator tutorials? I may be on to something….

It has been several weeks since I’ve written anything for doubleunderscore, basically since I had a guest blogging stint over @ art21 (again much thanks to Kelly Shindler). I thought a good way to get back into the swing of things over here would be to have a mental recap, and perhaps flesh out other thoughts in different ways (to get a sense of where I’m at now).

Initially, I had incredible difficulty taking on the task of writing for art21. I felt partially obligated to “represent a medium” while also representing my separation, or distance from that medium (a duty I find similar to teaching sometimes, but in a good way). I had convinced myself that I had to simultaneously bring readers up to speed on vernacular and discourse (a convoluted mess of wires and terms) while also introducing artists/projects that disrupted the typical notions of those narratives. Not saying that I accomplished this, or that I chose to do so, nonetheless this feigned sense of duty was a hurdle I hadn’t expected.

This being said, I felt as though I covered a fairly wide spread of newMedia art and theory; Obsolescence, Architecture/virtuality, Games as Art, and Media Archeology were the core posts. However, because of this broad spectrum I felt as though I under-represented the way media arts are manifested in Chicago: noise/experimental AV, recursions/feedback, “the glitch,” collaboration, hacktivism, etc. This distinction is important to my own practice but also deserves recognition outside of the Midwest. By looking at work by I <3 Presets, Alex Inglizian, Patrick Lichty, Lisa Slodki, Chris Riley, amongst many many others, there is a distinct interplay of ideas and concerns. Although Andrew Hicks has curated a Chicago-specific video screening based on issues of the Body (Scroll down for Andrew’s Statement), I attribute this connection between makers as something I discussed heavily in the Art21 guest blog: play.

Play has emerged in Chicago both out of utility and necessity (which could/should be viewed as being mutually implicated/influenced). The improvisational and collaborative nature of experimental AV, Film, and Video work in this city highlight a desire to work outside of traditional paradigms. A testament to this is the amazing amount of independent, non-commerical, artists-run galleries/project spaces/initiatives in Chicago. Although it can be viewed that the constant flux of spaces opening and closing is an example of the instability of Chicago’s art community, I’d argue the reverse. Although spaces come and go, and projects often times get shut down right when they start to really gain steam, the importance is that the community continues on to explore different ways of showing/sharing/communicating and interacting with their immediate community and the larger public. This flexibility enables the newMedia community to explore creativity in multiple venues, ranging from bedrooms to the MCA.

Although I didn’t get too much of a chance to explore these aspects of Chicago based newMedia work on the art21 blog, I’ll continue that initiative here.

all episodes from season 1-4. nicicles!

“Art:21–Art in the Twenty-First Century” is the only series on television to focus exclusively on contemporary visual art and artists in the United States, and it uses the medium of television to provide an experience of the visual arts that goes far beyond a gallery visit. Fascinating and intimate footage allows the viewer to observe the artists at work, watch their process as they transform inspiration into art, and hear their thoughts as they grapple with the physical and visual challenges of achieving their artistic visions.

Artist Mel Chin is currently in Fayetteville for a month-long teaching/art-making visit.  Details here.

Sweet Jesus, by Cosimo Cavallaro, 2005, sculpture, 200 pounds of chocolate

The Art21 blog has a very interesting series of posts entitled “What’s so shocking about contemporary art”. Read about it here. Those of you interested in education should also look into their series on teaching with contemporary art.

Oklahoma-born Trenton Doyle Hancock has a show at James Cohan Gallery in NY.